Maryland Statewide Transportation Model

MSTM

As Maryland continues to grow, providing a high quality, reliable transportation system will be vital. Responsible planning and performance driven decisions and investments will be critical in order to ensure safety, mobility, and multi-modal choices for the movement of people and goods.

The Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) collects and maintains data on Maryland’s highways to monitor a number of indicators of performance, in areas such as safety, mobility, system preservation, and environment. Currently, much of that data is being collected and made consistent via a common framework or “data hub”. By using the data collected for planning and system operations, SHA will be able improve decision-making and public awareness around its performance-based transportation efforts. The result will streamline information regarding investments, mobility, performance-based planning, and infrastructure improvements.

SHA’s modeling initiatives target the development of modeling capabilities across several levels — from the broad, multi-State or State-wide level to the granular, block or street level. SHA is developing computerized models at three levels

Level 1: Travel Demand Models, or models at the regional scale. These models are particularly useful for measuring system performance and for performance-based planning.

Level II: Mesoscopic Models, focused on segments of the highway or specific corridors. Mesoscopic models can serve system operations and related planning efforts.

Level III: Microsimulation Models, or models that analyze and predict traffic patterns at the highly-localized level. Microsimulation models most often support asset management and local planning studies.

These analytical tools provide the framework that can facilitate Maryland’s policies and transportation challenges.